


A Demonic Guide on How to Pass All Your Classes

by pento



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Demons, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Light Angst, Magic, dream is a demon, i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26072458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pento/pseuds/pento
Summary: It’s not easy being a magitechnology major in a top college an ocean away from home. If he doesn't want to lose his scholarship, George needs to save his grades— and fast.Bad life decisions ensue.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Zak Ahmed/Darryl Noveschosch
Comments: 23
Kudos: 152





	1. Chapter 1

There was mold in the ceiling tiles of the library.

At least, in the basement level George was currently in, which admittedly was danker than the rest of the library building. He rolled his neck side to side, trying to get rid of the persistent ache in his shoulders, and lifted his head from his seat back with a groan.

It was impossible to concentrate. He’d run out of coffee (and he didn’t even _like_ coffee) an hour ago and it felt like his sanity had fled not long after that. 1am shifts at the school library were absolute _hell_ , and though George had planned to use them to his advantage as revision hours, the words in the textbooks before him were swimming on the pages, and not just because of the flickering of the floating witch-lights.

George let his head drop to the table and groaned softly. There was a lump steadily building in the back of his throat that he resolutely tried to ignore.

 _Calm down, George_ , he thought to himself. _The Elementals professor said that a lot of students who do badly on the first midterm end with an A_.

But the first midterm had gone horrendously, and he’d only done marginally better on the practical, and the second midterm was coming up far too quickly.

Not to mention his exams for Kinetics and Advanced Obviations that would come close on the heels of his Elementals midterm. George didn’t even know when he would find the time to revise for them, especially when his planned study hours were as unproductive as this. The only classes he wasn’t too worried about were Invocations and Illusions, and even those grades would fall if he looked away for even a second. Everything just felt like _way too much_ —

George’s head snapped up; there was a loud series of _thumps_ in the stacks way off to his left, in the advanced Kinetics section. His heart jumped into his throat until his mind flicked back to a warning from one of the other students working in the library; it must have been some of the stronger Kinetics spells seeping into the pages and causing the books to act up.

He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. _Get it together… what did you think, that a serial killer was sneaking in the library in the middle of the night just to kill one failing student?_

He really needed to get some sleep.

But George was being paid to mind the library, regardless of it being half two in the morning, so he got up (wincing at the feeling of pins and needles in his legs), grabbed a witch-light out of the air, and hobbled over to the aisle he thought he heard the noise coming from. Row by shadowy row of dark stacks of thick scrolls and tomes passed, and George couldn’t help but to glance down each, warned by some instinctual wariness of what passes in the dark.

There was nothing in each row, however, and before long George reached the aisle in question.

As expected, there were a few books laying scattered on the floor, and one book—obviously the culprit—was bobbing about in midair, pages flipping to and fro like some sort of demented bird.

George reached out with both hands and wrested it shut, taking a glance at the title: “ _Kinetics: Niacan’s Advanced Suspension and Macro-spatial Manipulation, Sixth Edition_ ,” he read aloud, and huffed out a dry laugh. “Well, it checks out, I suppose…”

After muttering a rote Obviation spell, the book stopped struggling and George slid it back onto the shelf it had emptied with its flapping. None of the other books put up any struggle, and were put back into their proper place in no time.

All in all, George was feeling a bit more refreshed after getting up and moving around for a bit. He dusted off his hands and stepped back, only to hiss in surprise as his heel pounded somewhat painfully into something very solid on the ground behind him.

“What the—”

It was another book, one George couldn’t believe he’d missed. When he went to pick it up, he felt like he had to pry it from the floor, it was so heavy.

The front and back boards were made of a midnight-black material that felt like some sort of soft leather, and the corners and raised bands on the spine were made of gold. The title read, _Grimoyr af Knowne Greater Daemons and hir Invocations_. He could understand the words just fine—Middle English wasn’t _too_ different from modern English—but something vague about the book didn’t sit right with George, for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on.

What was more confusing was how this huge, thick tome made its way into the middle of the Kinetics section when it clearly belonged in Advanced Invocations, which George (and any other Magics student) would know from experience was three floors up.

Out of curiosity, George flipped to a random page. It was handwritten in elegant script, much to his surprise, and in an archaic English dialect. Most of the words were recognizable even with some different letters and inventive spellings, though, and with some effort he managed to read, “Psychic Demons… generally more amicable than Elemental Demons… less prone to—uh—immediate _murder?!_ Well, that’s good, I guess… they can be fonts of knowledge… employed help of… _dream demon_? To write this book—”

George inhaled sharply and snapped the book shut.

He was _not_ going to—

What the author described opened a realm of possibility that he did _not_ want to consider. He’d gotten into a world-renowned Magics university in a different continent off his own hard work and skill, and it left a bad taste in his mouth, a lingering sourness of shame, to imagine turning to something like this after all he’s previously accomplished.

 _It’s not worth it_ , George thought, _not worth it at all._ And without an ounce of regret—not even a tiny bit—he brought the book over to the returns cart and watched it vanish, transported immediately to its proper section three floors up.

It was only until he’d gotten back to his dorm and was falling asleep in his rickety bunk that he realized what was so odd about that book.

For something that read like it was from the middle ages, the binding and the pages were completely spotless and unworn, as though they were made yesterday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revise = brit-speak for study  
> Obviat- latin word root means “prevented” (“obviate” in modern English has diff connotation) but here I use “obviation” as a fancy way of representing warding and negating magics (eg. Wards, curse breaking, spell termination)  
> Idk how middle English works very well  
> Yes, there is a reference to gravity falls, which is an awesome show! Kudos to you if you spotted it


	2. Chapter 2

George heard his roommate coming down the hallway long before he reached the door. He turned over to face the wall, hoping that Nick would assume he was asleep.

There were a series of beeps as Nick entered his pin, then a click and slow creak as the door opened. The dim ceiling light flicked on. George heard some shuffling around and footsteps as Nick moved around, probably taking off layers and putting his bag down.

Just as he thought he was probably safe, Nick let out a little gasp and said, “George—I didn’t even notice you were here—oh, are you sleeping?”

George pressed his eyes shut and tried to control his breathing.

“George….” Nick said again, more softly. “C’mon, I know you had your Elementals midterm this morning…”

 _Goddammit, Nick, why do you have to remember_ that _of all things…_

“You’re not convincing with the fake sleep, George, so don’t even try. Unless, I’m actually annoying you, in which case, I can just piss off for a bit and let you actually nap…”

George sighed heavily and flipped over so he was facing his friend. Nick took one look at his face and winced.

“That bad, huh,” he said.

“Yeah,” George said. “Yeah, I’d say it was pretty bad.”

“Well… you know… there’s always the third midterm, and isn’t the lowest midterm grade dropped?” Nick said. George tried to muster up some gratitude for his friend trying to be positive for him. “Plus, you always tend to underestimate how well you do anyways.”

George didn’t know how to tell his friend that he did not, in fact, do well in his classes.

“Doesn’t matter if the lowest grade is dropped if all of them are shit,” he groaned, rolling onto his back and throwing an arm over his face. “And I don’t even know how I can find the time to revise for my Kinetics exam, which is _this Friday_ , and also Advanced Obviations next Tuesday—”

“Hey, hey—also, don’t call it _revise_ , it’s studying—I can probably help you study for Kinetics, and I know for a _fact_ that you’re not bad at Obviations. Plus, you could probably ask Zak to help with Kinetics! He’s an absolute genius at it and he’ll probably help you ‘cause you’re Darryl’s friend.”

George couldn’t help but snort at Nick for the revising-studying thing. “People who speak proper English say _revise_ , Nick, not my fault Americans are stupid…”

“Yeah, well, we’re _in_ America, so who’s stupid now? Jeez, I try to help you with studying and this is how you repay me… Oh—also, have you eaten yet? It’s already eight PM, I’m starving…”

George had not, and told him so.

“Agh, and all the dining halls are closed already. Wawa run?”

“Yeah, Wawa run, just let me drink some water first…”

It was barely past midnight and Nick was already yawning and rubbing his eyes every minute or so. They’d been in the library for three hours, and while Nick had been dutifully helping George study for his Kinetics exam in three days, George could tell his friend was nearing his limit.

“I think I’ve got it from here,” George said after Nick’s seventh yawn, suppressing one of his own. “Thanks for helping me out! You should sleep soon, you seem really tired.”

“You sure?” Nick said, except through another enormous yawn, so it came out more like “Ya saaaaahhhr?”

“Yeah, plus my shift starts soon anyways, so I’ll have some shelving to do. Go get some sleep, Nick.”

Nick rubbed his eyes and rolled his neck, groaning. “I’ll never understand how you do this. You decide to major in _magitechnology_ of all things… _how_ you learn all this advanced arithmancy whatever-theory is beyond me…” He shoved all his papers together and stuffed them in his bag. “Good night! And good luck with… all this.” He waved vaguely at the various graphs and scrolls scattered across the table.

George sat there until Nick turned the corner into the stairwell, and then let his head drop to the desk and groaned.

Contrary to Nick’s beliefs, George felt like he was learning _absolutely nothing_. Three hours of studying and it felt like nothing was sticking in his brain. Sometimes he envied his friend for his major; pyromancy simply didn’t have as many course requirements as magitechnology did.

 _Is this what burnout syndrome feels like_ , he wondered idly. _It wasn’t this hard to learn new things before…_

George wanted to sink into the table and never get back up, but he had to clean up the papers before his shift started, since it looked like he wasn’t going to be able to do any more revising that night. It was hard to look at the dizzying charts of esoteric numbers that were supposed to mean _something_ or other with regards to the relative scaling magnitude of runes for each element and _not_ feel like he was going to fail every test in his life ever.

 _Gods_ , Nick was right, why did George have to choose the hardest major available?

With a simple whispered levitation spell, George had the stack of papers and books floating obediently behind him as he went through the stacks, putting them back into their proper places. As he slid the last textbook back into its place, his fingers brushed over a familiar title: _Advanced Suspension and Micro-Spatial Manipulation_ by Niacan.

 _Huh_ , George thought absently. He’d managed to put the incident a week ago out of his mind, but seeing the troublesome Kinetics book again brought the picture of that mysterious midnight black grimoire he’d tried so hard to forget back into his mind.

“Oh, this is NOT what I need to be thinking about right now,” George muttered to himself. His shift was going to start, and he was _not_ going to think about his upcoming exams, and he was _absolutely not_ going to be thinking about how to cheat on said exams.

No matter what he told himself, though, something made him trek up three flights of stairs after his shift ended at 2am to look through the third-floor stacks. For no particular reason, of course. Just browsing. But as George’s eyes scanned the shelves, he found himself looking for a glimpse of that eerily black book.

He’d wandered through three rows of shelves before his sanity caught up to him and reminded George that he could be sleeping in his dorm right now instead of looking for a stupid book that was probably more trouble than it was worth. He sighed deeply and shook his head slightly, as if trying to clear the cobwebs from his sleep-deprived head.

He wasn’t even going to _use_ it; there was absolutely no point in looking for it.

But just as George was about to turn the corner into the stairwell, witch-lights winking out behind him as the floor emptied, something caught his eye. It was the kind of black that no light could escape from, just an inky black corner peeking out from the top of an otherwise empty return cart.

George’s blood was pumping loudly in his ears. He swallowed. There was no one around.

Before he could stop himself, George slung his bag over his shoulder, hefted the book up, and stuffed it inside. The weight settled uncomfortably across his shoulders, but George was too busy running down the stairs to adjust his backpack straps.

Heart pounding, he all but ran past the drowsing library security guard and speedwalked all the way back to his dorm. He kept expecting someone to come after him and demand him to open his bag and find the sto- _borrowed_ book and get him—expelled or something.

But campus was completely empty at that hour, so no one was there to see George as he hastened to his dorm.

When George opened the door to his room, it was pitch black inside. The light from the hallway showed Nick slumbering obliviously on his bed. George whispered a small witch-light into existence and carefully closed the door behind himself.

Without thinking, he let his bag drop to the floor like usual after a long day, only to jolt in surprise as the heavy book inside cracked loudly on the tiling. _Goddammit, George, you idiot_ , he kicked himself mentally, but all his sleeping roommate did was mumble something in his sleep and turn over to the other side.

Moving much more carefully, George changed out of his clothes and into his pajamas, then—keeping an eye on the lump on the bed on the other side of the room that was Nick—lugged the heavy grimoire out of his bag and climbed into bed with it.

The witch-light grew brighter at a whispered command, and George flipped open to the first page. Shoving the rest of his worries to the back of his mind, he started reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nick = Sapnap  
> Zak = Skeppy  
> Darryl = BBH  
> Ik it’s weird to use real-people-names in fanfic but it’s even weirder in my mind to have college people be calling their friends by their online usernames  
> Also ik Wawa isn’t a thing everywhere but it is where my college is, and it’s also how I gained 10 pounds throughout freshman year (which I subsequently lost during quarantine). It’s basically a 24/7 convenience store that also sells fast food of questionable quality. Hits different when you’re drunk at 2am tho  
> To answer some potential questions about the setting, this is basically a modern-day AU with magic mixed in. So, there’re modern inventions like phones and electric lights, but also magic.  
> And also, guys, don’t cheat. You’re not doing yourself any favors by doing that. A lot of people in my hs cheated to elevate their gpas so they could get into top colleges, but flunked out because you just. Can’t pull the same bs in college as in hs. Nor should you. This has been a psa,


	3. Chapter 3

George was sweating through his shirt despite the frigid late-autumn air. He felt like an absolute fool, pushing a whole cartload of raw clay across campus without using a Kinetics spell to make it move along by itself or at _least_ a Featherlight spell. But those would leave a magical residue on the clay, and even though that would be insignificant for other uses, the book said that could be disastrous for the context that George wanted to use it in.

As George rolled the cart into his dorm building, the security guard raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s a lot of target practice, boy,” she said, eyeing the 140-or-so pounds of clay he had in front of him.

“Ah, well, luckily it’s not just for me,” George laughed nervously. It wasn’t technically false, either.

She snorted and buzzed him in through the side door—the cart was too large to fit through the usual security gates. “I should hope not. Good luck on your exams.”

“Thank you have a nice day!” George replied in the same breath, then kicked himself mentally for sounding like a nervous wreck. It wasn’t like the _security guard_ was going to read his mind and see that he was going to use the clay for something that was. Definitely against the student code of conduct.

George managed to drag the sodding lump of clay all the way up to his room (eternally grateful for the lift) and return the cart to the entrance without any more awkward conversations. It was almost 4pm. He had probably at least five hours until Nick was back; he’d been out all day for a conference in New York City, and had told George he might be back late.

That left plenty of time for what George needed to do.

He pulled out the second-to-bottom drawer of his dresser and muttered a quick counter-spell; a stack of nondescript trousers shimmered and revealed midnight black leather etched with gold. George took the book and laid it out on his bed to the correct page.

It was a complicated summoning array, but George’s specialty was magitechnology; he lived and breathed arrays. He’d practiced drawing the complex runes and getting the exact angles and placements right; now all he had to do was scale it up from the size of a post-it note to the entire floor of his dorm room.

Easy enough.

George cleared the center of the room, rolling back the rug covering stone tile and kicking aside Nick’s discarded socks until there was a clear circle of around 7 feet wide, which he piled the huge chunks of clay directly in the middle of. Then he got to work.

The thing about drawing arrays was that, even though they were supposedly the most complex part of magitechnology (though they had uses in other disciplines, an obvious one being invocations), they made logical sense, unlike heavily intuitive Elemental magic. The runes were instructions, and the geometry related the instructions to each other. There was an incredible amount of freedom to do anything with arrays, from something as simple as lighting a fire to something as complex as integrating a temperature modulation spell with circuitry to control the environment of an isolated system. Which also meant there was a range of ways any particular task could be drawn in an array, from incredibly messy and redundant to extremely clean and elegant.

And this summoning array was an absolute piece of art. It was a deceptively simple array—a seven-pointed star circumscribed by two concentric circles, one of the most geometrically stable arrays possible—but because of that, also incredibly powerful.

Inscribed between the circles and inside each of the vertices were protections and bindings on the demon George was going to summon ( _oh my god, I’m actually summoning a demon, aren’t I,_ thought George wildly), each of which he had to painstakingly write on the uneven floor in chalk. Without smudging the rest of the array.

The first and simplest one bound the demon to the vessel it was given. That was what the clay was for; according to the grimoire, it was the best substrate to channel this specific demon’s power. How that worked, George had no idea, but he couldn’t exactly question what the book said.

That connected directly to the next clause of runes, which dictated the physical form of the vessel. Though the wording was vague and archaic enough that George couldn’t tell what exact form the demon would take on, there was definitely something in there about limiting its size and approximating it to a humanoid form.

The next four clauses were straightforward, preventing the demon from leaving the array or causing any harm to the summoner or chaos in the summoner’s realm. Unlike the rest of the array, these were far more specific; the vagueness of the wording of the rest of the array allowed the demon a lot of freedom, which meant that the protective clauses had to be watertight.

The final set of runes were simply there to allow the demon to return back to its realm once dismissed by the summoner… or if the summoner died. Its intention was to prevent the demon from being trapped without bounds in the summoner’s realm, but George knew that in practice, clauses like these were kill switches, forcefully sending a too-powerful demon back through. They were universal on dangerous invocations, for the safety of the summoner.

George swallowed nervously. While he should have been reassured by the fact that there was a practically foolproof kill switch on the invocation, it only reminded him of how incredibly _stupid_ of an idea this was.

If anything— _anything at all_ —went wrong, he imagined the resulting surge of magical power would alert half of campus to what he’d done. George of all people knew what magical backlash could do to someone.

And if that happened, George’s school life was _over_. The school administrators wouldn’t let something like this go unpunished. He would get expelled at the very least.

But the alternative was to suffer a slow and inevitable decline in grades as his classes got harder and harder. George was only a sophomore, and he was already struggling so much. If he failed even one of his classes, his scholarship would be revoked, and George couldn’t afford to attend this university without it. And considering the trajectory of his grades, that seemed inevitable.

George sucked in a breath and steadied himself resolutely. The one area of practical magic he was most confident in was his invocation abilities. If he couldn’t do this, then he might as well not be a student at this uni in the first place.

A double and triple check of the runes and geometry of the array yielded no mistakes to correct, no misspellings or misconnected lines. A flash of light from the window caught George’s eye as a car passed by; after a moment’s hesitation George shut the curtains and blocked the small gap underneath his room door.

Now, the only illumination in the room was the flickering yellow witch-light hanging from the ceiling. It cast the white chalk lines on the floor in stark contrast with the dark stone tiles, and deep wavering shadows on the uneven pile of clay within the center of the array.

There was no delaying any further.

George knelt close to the last vertex of the star and breathed in deeply, feeling his magic surge impatiently into his fingertips.

Before he could stop himself, he leaned forward and pressed his hands against the cool stone. For a microsecond, nothing happened, but then George felt a sudden, intangible _tug_ towards the center of the array as it _sucked his energy in_.

George was gasping for breath and desperately pulling back; nothing he’d ever done before had felt like this, a black hole greedily devouring everything George gave it and more.

The array lines were starting to glow from the outside in, George noted desperately; it was a mark that the invocation was moving past the halfway point, but he was already past his breaking point, he couldn’t—didn’t have any more to give—

There was something trickling down his face, but George couldn’t tell if it was tears or sweat— _or blood_ , popped into George’s mind. The rushing in his ears was deafening, his jaw ached from him clenching it too hard but it barely registered—he’d never felt like this, hollowed out, with the thing across the array scouring him for more, more _moremoremore—_

With a sudden and blinding sensation like he’d been put through a wall of compressed air, George was released from the array and fell backwards, heart pounding, barely catching himself on his elbows. His fingertips ached and tingled where they’d been in contact with the floor.

George opened his eyes to a whirlwind of color and yellow—or was that green?—light flashing across his vision. Sickening dread dropped like a stone in his stomach— _oh no,_ he thought, _it’s all over, the array broke—_ but he glanced down and the array was intact, and upon a second look, the writhing cloud of light and smoke and flickering visions was contained entirely within the boundaries of the array.

With awe, George realized that this— _this_ was the demon itself. It was deciding whether to accept the contract and be bound to the vessel. He couldn’t stop staring at the hypnotic swirling of colors and light and tantalizing flashes of visions he couldn’t comprehend but wanted to relive anyways.

The grimoire hadn’t mentioned anything like this.

Gradually, the roiling cloud of smoke started to consolidate and take on a more tangible form, turning darker and darker until the infernal smoke became pitch-black in a tall pillar from the floor to the ceiling. Not a pillar, George realized with a terrible shiver; though the shifting and flickering of the demon’s form, he saw legs and arms forming, far too long and skinny to be human, and with proportions that were _just_ off enough to tell George that this being was alien, not of this dimension.

George’s eyes slowly, as though drawn up by an inescapable tether, travelled upwards, though he was terrified of what he would see. The being was tall, taller than any human could ever be, and in his dread it felt like ages before George saw what must be the being’s head, for in his peripheral vision, he felt the burning gaze of two eyes from high above.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, George realized he was shaking like a leaf; there was a rattling in his core that wasn’t to do with anything physical, but from the pressure of being in this demon’s presence, and the knowledge—though George couldn’t think of how he knew—of what he had to do.

George looked into the demon’s eyes.

For a split second, though it felt like eternity, he met the terrible yellow gaze. The feeling was indescribable; it was as though he was frozen, everything within him exposed to the demon’s observation. There was a low, horrible grinding noise arising from all around him, and it echoed at the base of his neck and into his bones until he couldn’t bear it anymore, but he couldn’t move—

Then, in a blinding flash of white, the terrible noise vanished. George blinked his eyes open slowly and felt his heart stop for a beat—the circle was empty. The demon must have decided against the contract, even though literally _no_ demon would turn one as good as this down.

But a closer look revealed something small and white at the center of the array. To George, halfway across the room, it was just a misshapen, amorphous white glob.

As he shuffled closer, however, the glob rippled and took on a more defined shape, growing a small head on a little cylindrical body. George’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. Was this—really it? It couldn’t be more than 1.5 inches tall.

The white blob shivered a little more, then grew a wide, smiling mouth. Two tiny, wide-set eyes blinked open at George.

“Hi,” it said. “How are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if this gave you FMA vibes, that was completely intentional. probably my favorite anime ever besides MP100. 
> 
> also, since george is a coder irl, i thought it would be suitable for his “specialty” in this au to be something analogous to coding. which is what arrays are, i guess lol
> 
> here are the rules drawn in the array in plain english btw  
> 1\. Be bound to the vessel you are given  
> 2\. Shapes the form of the vessel  
> 3\. Do not pass the boundaries of this array until the terms have been accepted  
> 4\. Do not cause physical or psychological harm to the summoner  
> 5\. Do not cause physical or psychological harm to other beings in the overworld unless given express permission by the summoner  
> 6\. Do not hold malicious intent towards the summoner or those of the summoner’s blood  
> 7\. You may return to where you came once the summoner dismisses you or upon the death of the summoner
> 
> again, guys, if you’re struggling in any academics, don’t deal with it unhealthily like george is doing, especially in uni. there are always tutoring programs and so on available. and don’t pretend like you’re doing okay if you’re not, either! it never ends well, speaking from personal experience
> 
> also 1.5 inches lololol
> 
> also im so happy dream is finally in this :DDDD


	4. Chapter 4

“ _What?”_

It was difficult for George to process everything that’d been going on. His heart was only just starting to calm down, and he had to consciously untense his shoulders.

“I, uh—I asked you how you’re doing,” said the blob, like it was a very normal _human_ classmate of George’s and not an _interdimensional demon of immeasurable power_. Not to mention that its voice was the voice of an average American guy, and not… that demonic growl. Or maybe it would be a squeak, considering how small the blob was.

“I have so many questions right now,” said George blankly.

“Well, why don’t you answer mine first,” said the blob. “Usually there’s a pretty good answer to that, you know, it’s not like people usually summon me because they’re _bored_.”

“How am I doing?” repeated George. He could not shake the feeling of surrealness that came from talking to an inch-and-a-half tall white blob on the floor. “I—er, I guess I’m a little stressed, at the moment?”

“Stressed? About what? I mean, besides the obvious—like, I imagine summoning me wasn’t exactly relaxing…”

“Er…” It suddenly felt very silly for George to be explaining that he needed help _studying_ to an all-knowing psychic demon. “I’m going to be kicked out of this school if I don’t keep up my grades, so, there’s that. Well—okay, I just won’t be able to afford it, but it’s basically the same thing…”

George’s voice trailed off weakly into an awkward silence.

“So you’re saying you summoned me to be your _study buddy_ ,” the blob said, and his tone of voice was definitely flatter than earlier. “You couldn’t have wanted to take over the world, or something? Avenge the death of a loved one? No?”

“Okay, well, I’m _sorry_ ,” said George, who was starting to feel annoyed. “Can you help me or not? Because if not I can just send you back and—”

“ _Wait_ , no, actually no, don’t do that,” the blob said hastily, then laughed nervously. “I’ll help you pass your classes, I swear. Though I don’t know why you need help, given that you managed to summon _me_ …” it added in an undertone.

George sighed inwardly in relief and let himself relax marginally. There was one constant about demons like this one, and that was that they _never_ wanted to return to their own realm. It felt good in a mean, vindictive way to know that George could hold that fact over this demon.

“Okay, good then,” he said. Then, a thought struck him. “What should I call you? The book I used to summon you just called you a dream demon or psychic demon interchangeably.”

“Ah, well. Mistranslation, I suppose. You can call me Dream.”

“Dream, huh,” said George thoughtfully. It couldn’t be the demon’s real name—those were jealously protected for the power they wielded—but it was something George could get used to. “Nice to meet you, I guess. I’m George.”

The little blob seemed to smile a little wider, giving George a sinister feeling for a split second. “Likewise…. George.”

George had to work hard to clean up the whole room before Nick got back from his trip. While he was busy scrubbing the chalk off of the floor and replacing stuff that’d been knocked down while Dream was in his incorporeal form, the little blob demon was exploring his room like some sort of infernal cat, throwing George random questions while he worked.

For all that he talked like a modern college-aged guy, Dream didn’t seem to understand—or even know about—most of the modern technology that had been incorporated into daily life along with magic. He seemed to have no idea, for example, what phones were or how they worked. Apparently, Dream’s knowledge of George’s world—what the demon called the “overworld”—was limited to what he saw in, well, dreams. Which, George wasn’t sure how reliable the information was.

There was also something unnerving about the dream demon’s new, diminutive form. George couldn’t forget what it was like to see the demon’s true form. Or what little of the demon’s true form George could comprehend.

And every time George saw Dream’s tiny clay form, he was struck with the realization that the thing contained within had the power to completely destroy his world—and the only thing stopping him was his contract with George, for what that was worth.

World domination seemed to be the furthest thing from the demon’s mind, fortunately, as George watched him extend out a little arm to climb from the foot of George’s bed to his desk, overbalance, and fall in the gap in between with a hissed curse.

“Some help, please,” he called sheepishly, and George sighed and leaned forward from his position on the floor to pick up the little blob and set him on his desk.

“You’d think an all-powerful demon would be able to bridge a two-inch gap,” George couldn’t resist ribbing.

“ _Well_ ,” Dream said, taking on an offended tone. “I’m less than two inches tall right now! I’d like to see _you_ jump across a gap that’s—wait, how tall are you anyways?”

“Taller than _you_ ,” said George.

“Oh my god, you’re annoying,” Dream laughed.

“Seriously though, why are you that small? You can change your shape, right, so why don’t you just… get bigger?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Dream said again. “George, you can’t just _ask_ someone that—”

“What— _Dream!_ That’s not what I meant—aren’t you supposed to be more mature than this? Seriously, jokes about _size_?”

Dream laughed again, but there was a somber note to it.

“It’s been a long, long while since I’ve been in the overworld, George. It’s the only chance I get to make these jokes, really.”

George didn’t know how to respond to that. What was it like, being a demon in whatever world Dream came from? He couldn’t imagine.

“Humans are nice,” Dream was saying. “You guys actually have a sense of humor. And are willing to listen.”

Were not all demons like Dream, then? George knew that common, lower-level summonings rarely, if ever, displayed sentience, let alone emotionality, but he’d assumed that the more powerful demons got, the more sentient and intelligent they were. And Dream… he’d honestly far surpassed George’s expectations for the demon he’d be summoning. He was far more… humanlike than George had anticipated, maybe because of all the human dreams he’s experienced.

And Dream, at the moment, seemed rather lonely.

“Well, I guess you’re lucky, then,” George said. “You’re here now.”

And honestly, George hadn’t planned on keeping the demon around long. The thought of the risk he’d be taking had been enough to discourage him; the plan was to summon the demon, use it to help him pass his classes, and banish it as soon as possible to avoid detection.

He hadn’t thought even once about possibly _wanting_ to have the demon stick around.

But George’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of familiar footsteps down the hall accompanied by the sound of rolling wheels.

His heart leapt into his throat. _Nick_.

“Quick, Dream, hide in—my pencil case, or something,” George hissed, rolling the rug back over the still-damp floor and kicking Nick’s socks back over it in a hopefully convincingly haphazard pattern. “It’s my roommate, he can’t know you exist—”

“Wow, hurtful,” Dream commented wryly, but George saw him hop into the unzipped pencil case on his desk regardless. From a distance, he looked like a white eraser. George hoped that would be enough.

By the time Nick had put in his pin and unlocked the door, George was sitting innocuously at his desk, working studiously on—Elementals homework, apparently.

“Hey,” George said casually, looking up as Nick dragged his suitcase inside after him and kicked off his shoes with a huge sigh.

“’Ey,” Nick said. “Sup?”

“Not much, just more homework. As usual.”

Nick made a face and collapsed spread-eagle on his bed. He looked like a lazy panda, with his black pants and shirtsleeves with white shirt.

“How was your conference, then?”

“I mean, it was cool. A lot of sitting around and listening to people talk, asking questions. Networking ‘n shit. You know how it is.”

George pulled a face. “Yeah, networking… that’s my favorite thing to do…”

Nick snorted, rolled off his bed, and started rummaging through his suitcase. “Anyways, I feel filthy. Gonna take a shower.”

“Yeah, you _stink,_ Nick, you’re absolutely _putrid_ ,” George said, laughing a little. “I can smell you from _here_ , you disgusting human being…”

“Oh, piss off,” came Nick’s reply in his mock-British accent. He straightened up with his shower kit in hand and pointed at George as he backed out of their room. “I’m gonna be _squeaky_ clean when I come out of that shower, you’re gonna be able to _eat_ off of me—”

“Gross,” George said emphatically, but it was lost as Nick closed their room door after him.

He waited until his roommate’s footsteps faded down the hallway, then sank his head into his hands and let out a huge sigh.

“Oh my god….” How was he going to keep up this ruse? Even just knowing his roommate was in the same room as an _all-powerful psychic demon_ _that he was responsible for summoning_ was enough to make his palms sweaty.

“Your roommate seems chill,” Dream chirped suddenly, popping his head out from the pencil case and giving George a mini heart attack. “Looks like a panda, a bit, with that color scheme.”

“Yeah, he likes pandas,” George replied after letting himself take a calming breath.

“I know,” said Dream.

George hummed in agreement.

Wait.

“ _What?!”_

At his exclamation, Dream broke out laughing, rolling around in George’s pencil case. “Oh my god, your _face_ ,” he wheezed out—which didn’t really make sense from a physical standpoint, that a clay blob could wheeze, but at this point there was too much wrong in George’s life to question something like that—

“Seriously, Dream, how did you know?”

“I’m a _psychic_ demon, George, I’m supposed to know things? Isn’t that why you summoned me?”

George paused.

“Okay, good point, but it’s—I just—I guess I have to get used to it.”

Another pause.

“So is it mind reading, or what?”

“ _Yes_ , George, I’m a _psychic demon!_ ”

“…Oh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reminder to check your posture, stretch a little, and drink some water!
> 
> this chapter made me happy because theres finally more interactions between dream n george and george n sapnap. more to come
> 
> there’s also a little bit of angst going on with Dream… gonna explore that in future chapters >:3c notice anything about his description in the last chapter?
> 
> also did yall see what I did with the clay thing :^) im funny I swear
> 
> just a note about my upload schedule: i’m busy in college, so it’s a real struggle to write these chapters. i do however have everything planned out and am definitely going to keep working on it!


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